Vincent Reynouard
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Vincent Reynouard (born 18 February 1969) is a French
Holocaust denier Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...
and proponent of neo-Nazism. He has been convicted and jailed in France under the
Gayssot Act The Gayssot Act or Gayssot Law (french: Loi Gayssot), enacted on 13 July 1990, makes it an offence in France to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of wh ...
, which bars
Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...
.


Biography

Vincent Reynouard was, according to his own writings, attracted by
National Socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
at the beginning of his teenage years: "Around 14 years old, I was able to study photos of the Third Reich. I rapidly understood that true socialism, the kind I aspired to, had been realized by Adolf Hitler". A student at the ISMRA in Caen in the early 90s, he created the "Normandy Association for the Awakening of the Citizen" (''Association normande pour l’éveil du citoyen''), which distributed a bulletin named "New Vision" (''Nouvelle vision''), co-authoring it with Rémi Pontier. In it, he declared being part of the "post-revisionist" Holocaust denial movement derived from Robert Faurisson, Alain Guionnet, and Olivier Mathieu, aiming not only to denounce, what he sees as the "myth of the Shoah" but also the " Jewish control" over the modern world. Reynouard was expelled for some time from his university campus for distributing pamphlets and stickers. He also had an active role in the
French and European Nationalist Party The French and European Nationalist Party (french: Parti nationaliste français et européen or PNFE) was a French nationalist militant organization active between 1987 and 1999. Led by Claude Cornilleau until 1996, its slogan was "France first, ...
in which he was briefly the Secretary General in 1991.


Holocaust denial activities and criminal convictions

In 1991, Reynouard was convicted of distributing Holocaust denial literature.2 French Teacher Suspended for Holocaust Denial Activities
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (13 January 1997).
Reynouard had given high school students materials "questioning the existence of the gas chambers".Julie C. Suk, "Denying Experience: Holocaust Denial and the Free Speech Theory of the State" in ''The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses'' in
The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses
' (eds. Michael Herz & Peter Molnar: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 153.
He was tried along with Remi Pontier, the first two people convicted under the Act. Both were members of the neo-Nazi
French and European Nationalist Party The French and European Nationalist Party (french: Parti nationaliste français et européen or PNFE) was a French nationalist militant organization active between 1987 and 1999. Led by Claude Cornilleau until 1996, its slogan was "France first, ...
. Although convicted, he was permitted to continue teaching mathematics at a
Honfleur Honfleur () is a commune in the Calvados department in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. The people that inhabit Honf ...
,
Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
high school until 1997, when he was suspended after he was "found to be using the school computer to file documents denying the Holocaust and the fax machine to send the writings to his followers" and "giving his students statistical equations regarding the rate of mortality in Nazi concentration camps". In the fall of 2000, Reynouard affiliated himself with the Vrij Historisch Onderzoek, a
Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
Holocaust denial and Nazi-sympathizer group. At the time, Reynouard was being investigated by French authorities, and he had chosen to go into exile in Belgium, where he took up residence with a
Catholic fundamentalist Traditionalist Catholicism is the set of beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions, and presentations of Catholic teaching that existed in the Catholic Church before the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council ...
group in
Ixelles (French, ) or ( Dutch, ), is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located to the south-east of Brussels' city centre, it is geographically bisected by the City of Brussels. It is also bordered by the munic ...
,
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
with close ties to the
Society of Saint Pius X The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) ( la, Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X; FSSPX) is an international fraternity of traditionalist Catholic priests founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a leading traditionalist voice at the Sec ...
.Bertelsmann Stiftung, ''Strategies for Combating Right-wing Extremism in Europe'' (Brookings Institution Press, 2009), p. 151. Reynouard ran the group's French-language operations. In 2004, Reynouard was convicted by a French court of crimes under the 1990 Gayssot Act for distributing a pamphlet and videocassette that questioned the
Oradour-sur-Glane massacre On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including non-combatant women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company. A n ...
, in which many French villagers were killed. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison, of which 18 months were suspended. In 2005, Reynouard mailed a 16-page pamphlet entitled "Holocaust? What Is Being Hidden from You" to chambers of commerce, museums, and town halls across France.Erik Bleich, ''The Freedom to Be Racist?: How the United States and Europe Struggle to Preserve Freedom and Combat Racism'' (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 143 & 183.Michael Whine, "Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It" in ''Extreme Speech and Democracy'' (eds. Ivan Hare & James Weinstein). The pamphlet claimed that the Holocaust was "propaganda". As a result, in 2007 Reynouard was sentenced to one year in prison and fined €10,000. In November 2015, Reynouard was tried before a Normandy court for Holocaust denial in
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
posts. Reynouard, who chose to represent himself at trial, was sentenced to two years in jail; the sentence was enhanced due to Reynouard's prior convictions. In November 2022, Reynouard was arrested in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, having fled France in an attempt evade two separate terms of imprisonment, handed down by the French authorities in November 2020 and January 2021 respectively. At the time of his arrest, Reynouard was living under a false identity in Anstruther, where he had reportedly been working as a private tutor.


In popular culture

*1998: ''Terminale'', directed by Francis Girod: played by
Bruno Wolkowitch Bruno Wolkowitch is a French actor born on 10 May 1961 in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement. Biography Bruno Wolkowitch (orig. Wołkowicz) is of Polish descent. His father was a tailor turned bookkeeper and his mother a beautician who became a d ...
*2021: ''L'Homme de la cave'', directed by Philippe Le Guay, played by François Cluzet


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynouard, Vincent 1969 births Living people French people convicted of Holocaust denial French essayists French male essayists French prisoners and detainees French neo-Nazis Prisoners and detainees of France